Second month under saddle... one big recap

Wow, where did February go???? I mean I know it’s the shortest month of the year, but only by two days… how is it that it always ends up feeling like its two weeks shorter? I didn’t blog once in the month of February. I started a couple, but never posted. So here we are, the very brief wrap-up of the month. I’ve been busy, too busy… but still finding ways to get out to ride the little mare regularly. She’s a funny one. Even on her naughty days when she’s not paying attention she still is so sweet that she makes me glad I’m out there. She always tries to follow me back out the gate when I put her back out to pasture. Silly pony.

The first Saturday I actually got out to the barn during daylight! Hurray! I also ended up tacking up right as one of the other boarders got out there to tack and I got the chance to go ride out on the property with someone! The back pasture must be at least half the 90 acres, so it really is riding out on the “back forty”, and it has some water to cross, a sort of dirt road running through the center, and lots of little ups and downs. I’m super excited to have such a fun place to work outside.

I had Bear tacked up in the western saddle so that I could pony Lola. This other boarder has a super cute Friesian and an older arthritic Appendix Quarter horse. His routine is that he lets the older gelding loose when he gets into the back pasture, then rides his other horse and the old guy just follows. It was super cute how the old guy tagged along! It also added two calm horses that are confident out there to give my two greenies some courage. It was great to be outside, its been ages since I’ve ridden anywhere but the indoor arena. I think I’m getting a little cabin fever! I can’t wait for the ground to dry out so that I can actually do more than walk when outside.

Skipped a weekend since I was out of town…

Then the weekend after I took Lola out in the pasture for some serious “forward” time… aka finally getting her butt cantering without pissing her off. I had lunged her out in the pasture one night the week before since it was bright and sunshiny enough to have a real sunset where it stays light until the sun goes all the way down. She did great, but since it was getting dark I had only walked and trotted around the part of the pasture closest to the barn. So on that Saturday I went out in the western saddle with a dressage whip to beat off the herd of horses in case they got to friendly, and we cantered! I let her kind of pick her own path as long as she cantered, and if she started heading towards the herd we stopped and took a breather and turned the other way to canter again. It was in no way training on picking up the canter from a cue, or work on getting her leads. I just wanted her to have confidence that she could canter with me on her. And I wanted me to have confidence that I could canter her without bucking or running off and then stop her! So that’s all we worked on. We’ll get to the rest of it later. For now I wanted to keep it simple and I knew she’d be more likely to step into the canter out where she has room to run. That next Sunday I convinced one of the girls that I met out at the barn to ride Bear while I rode Lola. She has a big hot thoroughbred, so I figured handling little laid back Bear wouldn’t be an issue for her, and since her horse is rehabbing from an abcess, I didn’t have much trouble tempting her to come ride with me. So Lola got a real trail ride all around the pasture, and she was fantastic. We mainly walked, and just trotted a little down the middle road. Fun and simple, and SUPER relaxing!

The rest of the rides in between have been me trying to squeeze in time to lunge and ride and groom the endless hair that she’s shedding! Not working so well, I could use three hours just for grooming! She’s coming along though. She is definitely comfortable cantering the circle on the lunge with side reins now, and I’m starting to push her more physically.

This last weekend was not super productive. More rain over the week made the pasture too wet to ride in, and made Bear’s feet so wet that I spent all my time Saturday treating his ankle grunge. Ugh. Sunday I got back into the swing of things and worked her butt off in the indoor arena. She was feeling spunky and darting past sun spots on the ground and leaping into the canter, so I made the most of an energetic horse and worked her good at the trot and canter with the side reins. Not just running around like a maniac, but insisting that she stop or transition down to a slower gate when I asked, and not two circles later! So although she had a lot of workout, I also got her tuned up on listening to me. Then I hopped on and trotted some more! She got her legs and chest hosed off afterward since it was nice and sunny out, and I spent some time really washing and brushing her tail while her legs and belly dried off.

Tonight was a fantastic night, best for a while. Since she was being spunky and silly on Sunday, I had really drilled her on the lunge line. It made a total difference, and was clear from the we walked out into the arena tonight. She has been spooky about the far end of the arena, which is understandable since instead of being a solid wood wall like the rest, it is a big metal sliding door that moves in storms and is loud when dirt hits it. She didn’t even look twice at it tonight. She was only paying attention to me. Its funny how these things creep up. Night after night I started letting her get away with little things here and there until she just got used to tuning me out and focusing on every excuse to be silly. It took just one day of saying, “Um… no… you need to me more concerned about me in the middle and looking for when I’m going to ask you to do the next thing, because I expect a response NOW.” Today she is back to her old self, her GOOD self, where she is super quiet and responsive. She did what she was told and RELAXED! So we had a good lunge workout, but with a calm demeanor, and I just hopped on to do some turns on the forehand and haunches while walking around to cool her off.

Highlights of the month:
• Her canter is getting stronger and stronger, and she looks lovely cantering with the side reins.
• She’s been out of the arena and been challenged mentally.
• She’s shedding out great!
• Her body is starting to look really good with cute haunches.
• She’s a star at crossing water.
• She stops, even when cantering out in the open pasture!
• Her attitude and work ethic has been great, not crabby or sour, she’s easy to catch, and always tries to follow me back out the gate when I’m turning her out again.

I’m feeling like these are all great achievements for her second month under saddle!